In the legal memo provided by the president's Office of Legal Counsel, the administration argues that the president had the authority to attack Libya absent Congressional authorization because he determined it was in the national interest and because the U.S. is engaged in limited military operations that do not constitute a war.
The war in Libya is not in our national interest. The claim that the U.S. had to act in Libya in order to maintain stability in the region -- "a vital U.S. interest" -- runs contrary to the history of U.S. military intervention in the region. As evidenced by U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq and drone bombing campaigns in Pakistan, rather than maintain stability, U.S. military action in the region has unfortunately served to further instability. Occupations fuel insurgencies and close a circle of never-ending violence. Additionally, the doctrine that the U.S. has a responsibility to act militarily, without prior authorization from Congress, in the event of a threat to any of our friends in the world puts us on a path to permanent war and has no legal basis in the Constitution or the War Powers Act.
The Obama administration has prosecuted a war that is "not a war." The assertion that U.S. military actions in Libya do not constitute war belies the significant use of military force in Libya. The administration's own Secretary of Defense, while testifying before Congress last month, admitted that enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya was an act of war: "A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses." The United States, thus far, has spent well over $550 million on the war in Libya, using at least 112 long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, estimated to cost up to $1.5 million each, in the first day alone. The U.S. also used Joint Direct Attack Munitions -- 2,000 pound bombs -- to bomb Libya. The characterization of the use of force in Libya solely as a humanitarian intervention cannot hide the reality of what war is. The attempt to assert that this is not a war does violence to cognition and violence to the English language. It is positively Orwellian.
The administration also claims that authority to use U.S. military force abroad was provided by United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1973, which authorized member states to "take all necessary measures" to protect Libyan civilians and to enforce a no-fly zone. The Constitution does not provide an exception for the president to unilaterally decide to use military force abroad if an international body, such as the United Nations, provides him with one. It is unequivocally clear, in Article 1, Section 8, that the power to authorize the use of military force or to declare war lies solely with Congress.
The law provides the president with the authority to use military force absent prior Congressional authorization only to repel sudden or imminent attack. There was no threat of sudden or imminent attack to the United States from Libya. President Obama himself recognized the constitutional limitations imposed on any U.S. president when, in an October 2008 interview, he stated that "The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
In the sophistry of the Office of Legal Counsel's memo, the Obama administration fails to justify what cannot be justified. While the president has argued that the credibility of the United Nations (U.N.) was at stake if members of the Security Council did not act, it is actually the credibility of his administration and of our own democracy that is at stake. Preserving the credibility of the U.N. has never been a reason to go to war. A plain reading of the U.S. Constitution explicitly places war powers in the hands of Congress.
In this flimsy attempt to justify military action in Libya, it appears as though the administration is taking scissors and scotch tape to the Constitution, cutting out sections they do not like, and replacing them with legal theory that is reminiscent of the now discredited theories (of a former administration) which were used to justify torture.
Follow Rep. Dennis Kucinich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RepKucinich
This appears to be the crux of Rep. Kucinich's legal argument in opposition to the President's military action in Libya, but there is no indication it it an accurate statement of what U. S. law actually provides. After reading the Opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel, it apears Rep. Kucinich's argument is based upon a false and unsupported premise.
See:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/20110401-authority-military-use-in-libya.pdf,
Rep. Kucinich may WISH that the President is legally authorized to unilaterally employ military force "only to repel sudden or imminent attack," but it isn't true. The claims of "sophistry" and "flimsy attempt" made by Rep. Kucinich are empty rhetoric, and they are more appropriately applied to his own argument.
1) The power to declare war is one of Congress' enumerated powers in the Constitution and not one granted to the President. The founders, like most right thinking people, knew that war has the potential to cripple or end a nation and put the power to involve the US in wars into the hands of the deliberative body of the many--Congress--rather than in the single executive. If you want to argue that the President can initiate warfare without Congressional approval, what other enumerated powers of Congress can the President unilaterally exercise? Why can't he increase taxes on his own, for a limited period, if he determines it to be in the national interest?
2) Read the Prize Cases.
3) Common sense: find some. It is telling that the only support you provide for your position comes from the O Administration. RAH!!!RAH!!!RAH!!! Go team!!!
~ I don't think so. I believe President Obama acted well within the established legal extent of his official authority. I also think that Rep. Kucinich's argument was merely a statement of personal preference about how he thinks the law ought to be, but isn't.
The fact that we also have at least 2 MORE YEARS IN IRAQ is disgusting.
Fighting in Afghanistan is ridiculous unless we are there for some kind of hokey "Risk" move against Pakistan or Iran.
End the Wars NOW or tax Wall Street or the rich to pay for the stinking thing. (Start by taxing Haliburton as we know that the former VP made buckets of money from the wars waged by the U.S).
DEFUND the wars NOW.
Promote peace and bring home the troops.
Pres. Obama seems to have the same advisors that our last President has because he is using the same military strategies of the last President.
You have my respect and a lot of Conservatives as a man with true convictions
Please move forward on impeachment. If this President does it once with impunity, he has no reason to refrain from doing it again; nor do any future Presidents. If this President can ignore one part of the Constitution, how can we be sure he will not and is not ignoring the parts that protect us from government intrusion?
President Obama is being very careful to execute, following the leadership of President Bush, while not appearing to be following the leadership of President Bush
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Am I just naive, or is Kucinich grandstanding, in the fake-grandstanding mode that Obama was in when he called the Iraq war a "stupid" war.
Are people still eating this garbage up. Kucinich just seems to be another politician.
We can fix the people in office by taking the money out of it, then we will get people who want to serve and fix things instead of people who want to fix things for the top 15 and serve themselves and their careers.
Regardless of whether or not something is just or well-intentioned, it's still illegal to take action without the legal standing to do so...or, at least, those questions are brought before a judge and a jury whenever there appears to be a violation.
Just because other presidents have done it and gotten away with it doesn't mean we must continue to accept it--and so long as he has been in Congress, Mr. Kucinich has been saying the same thing. No one can deny that.
It is We the People who fall collectively deaf based on whoever is trampling over the rule of law and their political leanings. Republicans haven't cornered the mark on hypocrisy...not by a long shot.
If I am wrong and Mr. Obama's actions are directly and explicitly permitted by Constitutional and Federal law, someone please enlighten me so I can feel better. To my understanding the situation in Libya does not even meet the requirements of the War Powers Resolution...but I am not an expert.
So, if you want to make a point about the abuse or misuse of the power, then pick a demonstation moment that would set the precedent of being against abuse, not the correct and responsible use of force. Force is a fact of life.
So that is why I am so adamant aginst Kucinich, it's not that I worship force or think Presidents should be able to do anything, it is that his clownishness here just muddlies the dicussion for his own visibility's sake.
As far as trampling the Constitution the only way the Constitution means anything is if it is holographically imprinted on all of us and we all agree with it and stand up for it ... I don't see that happening and I am not even sure the Constutution is that great a document, except for the lack of anything better ... remember it has references to slavery in it.
It was written to create a government that cannot work in a way.
I will vote for and stand with you! Run again Dennis! if you figure out who exactly Obama is working for, let us know that too, so we can stop shaking our heads.
WE must stop sending our army to wherever the market forces (bankers) want a security force. I guarantee that bankers do not care one iota who is in power in those areas, they only want a secure quiet office in which to count their bounty and will pay off whoever provides that. National security has never had any place other than a headline in the decision of GWB's to send troops to Afghanistan or Iraq.
Saddam was buying black market oil from france in euros under the noses of American and Arab dollar bankers. Afghanistan will soon be the only place on the globe where a lithium mine exists, except for China...ours is about gone.
Keep up the good work Dennis!
I really fail to see how bombing another country is righteous and moral, especially when we didn't even come close to exhausting diplomatic avenues here. War is war. It should only ever be the last resort because it is the failure of reason, a force of destruction representing the worst act of humanity, and it never, ever changes.